012 027 629 3 



Hollinger 

pH8.5 

Mill Run F3-1719 



E 458 

• 4 ^ -m a T , HS/EOTI^ES OF THE FLBBELLjIOlsr. 

.D435 <i<»i» m 

Copy 2 




DEPICTED BY SOUTHERN LOYALISTS IN ITS 

Itows! ipiwt gf Jiiittittc f fiiiliJli^, 
AGAINST THE NATIONAL UNION : 

SHOWING A CONTEST OF 

^laoe/ir and ^ahtlitg emits Jrc* (ftorcrcment 

" The greatest difficulty from the outset, in thewayof a just appreciation by the North of the real nature of this Rebellion, 
has been the fact, that the loyal men who knew most of it were least able to give their testimony. The last echoes 
of the cannon at Sumter had hardly died away before the communications between the two sections were closed ; 
and the northern mind was left to only casual and desultory means of learning the developments of the astound- 
ing iniquity. The consequence was, that it was very slow to apprehend the real malignity and scope of the 



' Therefore, the evidence of such men as Col. Hamilton, and Lorenzo Sherwood, fresh from the active Scenes of the 
Rebellion, and who watched it with penetrating eye from its first step, is of peculiar value. Their conclusions, 
formed on the very spot, face to face with the monster, are of infinitely more weight than the notions of Northern 
men, who know it only by occasional glimpses in the far distance. It is we'l that their testimony should be 
brought before, our intblic, whenever it can be obtained. 

1 The gentlemen who have induced such men to address our people, with instruction and appeal, have done the good 
cau?e precious service. Winging their way, as these speeches do, by the press, through every loyal State, they 
will have a salutary influence of no small moment in the present critical period of the war." * * " Listening 
to such men, the conviction comes home afresh to us, that we of the North, need everywhere and alwaya to pre- 
serve that ETERNAL VIGILANCE which is the PRICE OF LIBERTY." 



ADDRESS 

THE DEMOCRATIC LEAGUE 



Loyal Leagues 



and Loyal Men thronghont 
the Land. 



As the Democratic League was the first " League " formed nearly three years ago for sustaining the National Gov- 
ernment against the Slaveholders' Rebellion, so it continues in harmonious co-operation with the thousand '-Loyal 
leagues " since organized through various States lor defending the National Cause : And it is a source of high satis- 
faction that the various documents issued by it have been read and republished in Europe as well as in America, to an 
extent that indicates a rapidly-increasing appreciation of the thoroughly Democratic Doctrines it has asserted when 
Appealing to the American Peoplo for unflinching bravery and fidelity in preserving their freo institutions. 

No one of the documents thu3 widely disseminated since the war began presented tho great issues of this crisis 
iu a clearer light or at a rtwre important season than the article entitled, ' ' SLAVERY AND NOBILITY versus DEMOC- 
RACY." The high and just ground assumed by that article has been impressing itself moro and more upon the publi« 
mind, as the event.s of the Rebellion have successively added practical evidence of tho truthfulness of tho writer in 
depicting the Anti-Democralic motives of the Slavebreeding Aristocracy. To it, moro than to any other similar docu- 
ment, has been ascribed tho merit of having earliest vindicated the rights of tho non-slaveholding whito men, South 
as well as North, and earliest urged the policy of emancipating and arming tho Colored Raco as a necessary measure of 
National Defence agaiast tho Slave-breeding traitors. 

Coming, as that article did, from the pon of a Southern Unionist; — embodying tho long-settled convictions of a well- 
known Democrat, who had thoroughly watched and combated tho movements of tho incipient treason inside and out- 
side of the Texas Legislature — that statement furnished convincing arguments for loyal men throughout the land — 
arguments that could .not be ascribed to "fanaticism," or attributed to any other motivo than a desire to •• strike the 
Rebellion at its mosLvulnerable point" 

It is gratifying to know that, while tho treason comes from the South, an effective portion of the antidote comes 
also from that region. While tho views thus calmly an 1 powerfully presented by Mr. I/ORExzo SnsHwoOD settled th» 
question of adopting tho policy of Emancipating anil Arming tho Colored Unionists, tho subsequent letter of Geo. An- 
drew Jackson Hamilton powerfully sustained it. Those two publications contributed most largely to arouse and 
strengthen the popular mind in sustenance of these vital measures of National Policy. Gen. Hamilton was among tho 
foremost in approving tho views expressed in this document — " fully concurring " in them — and declarintr (hat •• few 
men are so well prepared, from observation, experience, and reflection, to think wisoly and act justly in the promises 



f-1 

2 ADDKESS OF THE DEMOCRATIC LEAGtIE. 

as Mr. Sherwood,"— with whom he had " in years past watched the inevitable tendency in the South to the present de- 
plorablo condition of our country." 

The effect of this and other documents issued by the Democratic League, in arousing public attention to the vast 
issues involved in the present struggle for National Self-preservation, is briefly illustrated in the following recent re- 
marks of the Continental Monthly : — 

"Amongst all the papers and pamphlets issued from the press during our present war," says tho Continental, 
"none, perhaps, have exercised a more salutary influence than those emanating from the Democratic League. The 
article 'entitled 'Slavery and Nobility vs. Democracy' was originally published in the month of July, 1862. Pro- 
nounced by critics to bo among tho best political articles ever appearing in print, it commanded a very marked atten- 
tion as an exposition of the atrocious motives that underlaid the great Southern rebellion. The public mind was 
startled at tho developed evidenco of a great conspiracy to subvert the fundamaital principles of free government in the 
South. The coalition between tho conspirators of tho South and their allies amongst the aristocracy <>f Kngland was 
laid bare, whilst a great portion of tho English press and reviews was shown to be suborned into the service of the 
most atrocious objects and purposes that ever disgraced the annals of civilization. This article, whilst it elucidated to 
our own countrymen tho secret motives of the rebellion, assisted powerfully to bring a new phase over a perverted 
English public opinion. The result has been that the vitiated disposition of the English aristocracy to assist the rebels, 
through intervention, has slunk away before British morality, and is now seen only in aid of piracy on our com- 

X^=-Thus much is here said for the purpose of showing that no document can now be circulated by loyal men with 
better prospects of promoting the loyal cause. Thousands who at an earlier day would have passed lightly by such 
appeals are now convinced, by the events of the Rebellion, that the causes of that traitorous convulsion he deeper and 
fouler than was not long ago generally supposed. Thousands upon thousands, who before the Rebellion stood flrmly by 
the Democratic. Partv, aro now realizing tho necessity of merging old party names for the present in a zealous support 
of the National Government against the Slave-drivers, whose Rebellion was prompted by tho desire of subverting Demo- 
cratic Principles as well as destroying our National Unity. 

The aid of all such men in and out of tho Loyal Leagues, is now earnestly invoked to further the g 1 cause by 

circulating among their neighbors a document like this now republished, after the ACCURACY OF ITS STATEMENTS 
and the C< dllil-'CTVESS OF ITS PRINCIPLES have been so vividly illustrated by the progress of events in this unparal- 
leled CONTEST FOR DEM' ICRATIC PRINCIPLES and for NATIONAL EXISTENCE. 

New Yoke, Sept. 1864. HENRY O'RIELLY, Sec. 

J3®-The audacity with which tho " Democratic " name is used by tho Copperhead apologists of the Slaveholders' 
Rebellion— the factionists who advocato an " armistico" and " oeaco on any terms" with the Rebels— may well justify 
the inquiry — 

WHO ARE THE REAL "DEMOCRATS"? 

The bare definition of the word democracy answers this question. The term democracy, in its practical, ideal 
sense, signifies popular government. This is formed by enfranchising the masses, giving them political power, and 
throwing upon the people the responsibility of protecting themselves. Aristocracy aims to deny to the common 
people the right of voting, or any voice as to who shall make laws and fill offices. Tliese two opposing principles in 
government are now at war with each other. 

After the secession of the Southern States, when the Southern Confederacy was supposed to bo established, the 
leading Rebels threw off all disguises, and boldly declared in favor of an aristocracy. In all the leading presses, re- 
views, and political literature of rebeldom, has this project of overthrowing democracy and establishing an aristocracy 
been declared and advocated. The rebel orators and letter-writers have been equally explicit. The arguments put forth 
by the conspirators have assumed different forms, but all have the same meaning. Jeff. Davis rails against the demo- 
cratic doctrine of a popular government, and calls it "tho tyranny of a majority." On another occasion, more re- 
cently, he characterizes the popular will as " tho despotism of a majority." It has been a favorite declaration with 
the Secessionists of the South for years that " government through the will of the majority must be abrog ,t.-,l." 

Th - S mlvrn Literary Messenger, assuming to speak as tho exponent of the views of the Southern leaders, says : 
"Let us seek to eradicate every vestige of radical democracy, every feature tending to make ours a popular govern- 
ment," etc. Again, in tho sameprint : " We would not be understood as uniting in the belief of tho impossibility of 
a successful republic, that we cry out for the re-eslablUhmcnt of royally in this freo country." * * * " We have no 6b- 
jtctbmstoroiialU/ when restrained by constitutional barriers." "You well object to the term Democrat" — (says Mr. 
Garnett in liis letter to .Mr. Trescott, of S. C ) " Democracy, in its original, philosophic sense, is indeed incompatible 
with Slavt ryand the whole system of Southern society ; yet, if you look back, what change will you find made in any 
of ourState Constitutions, or iu our legislation in its general course for tho last fifty years, which was not in the direc- 
tion of democracy ?" 

II -re i-s m mifested th" 1 same, repugnance to the will of the majority. De Bow's Review is equally explicit, wherein 
itcontemns tho democratic axiom of " the greatest good of the greatest number" as "a pestilent and pernicious 
dogma." The same articlo winds up with the declaration that " an hereditary Senate and Executive are the political 
form best suited to the genius, and most, expressive of the ideas of the South." 

7he Richmond Examiner, of a very late date, assumes that the priwijilea of popular government, and protection to 
popular right through popular government, i« the mistaken civilization of the age, which a perverse generation has liftodup 
in the face of ancient institutions ! De Bow's Review puts in the rejoinder . 

" Th-- real ci\ ilization of a country is in its aristocracy. The masses are moulded tatosoldiers and artisaus by intellect, ju?t as matter and 
the element.- of nature ar* 
paupers. Yet we vi al 1 b 

The Unionists of the South, who for thirty years have faced the monster Rebellion, and listened to the reasonings 
in which it originated, are equally explicit in declaring the contest to be a battle between aristocracy and democracy. 
The whole intelligence of the world understands it as Richard Cobden, of England, understood it when he pronounced 
the conspiracy " an aristocratic Rebellion against a democratic govenum nt " 

We might compile a volume of tho same kind of evidence, to show that the Rebellion involved a conspiracy not 
only against the nationality, but against all the princijtes if republican or democratic government — that the strongest 
feature of the conspiracy was hostility to the political rights of the non-slaveholding masses oi the South. 

These were the forces in tho South against whom the jealousies of tho Calhounites u.-ie mosl intensified Mr. 
Spratt, of South Carolina, well expressed it in his speech in the Vicksburg Secession Convention of IS.V.i He assumod 
that " separation from the North would merely adjourn the contest" — " that, as this Southern 1>, m entry [alluding to 
the non-slaveholders] grappled Slavory in its homes and on its hearthstones, it would involve a still more'bloody contest 
in the future " 

In all this evidence, thero is manifest and made apparent, a bloody pre-determination to give to slaveholders a mo- 
nopoh/ of political power, and to mako such power the agency to perpetuate Slavery. 

We' accept this issue directly with the conspirators against popular government. If men, calling themselves 
Democrats, choose to go down on their knees into '• dirt-eating" subserviency to their Southern overseers, we cannot 
help their degeneracy. It may bo a fitting attitude for men who have no appreciation of the term democracy as ap- 
plied to protective popular government ; but, if wo mistake not, there is a power of appreciation in the demo- 
cratized masses of the people that will, sooner or later, spurn all the reasoning and motives in which the Rebellion 
originated. 



THE VITAL QUESTIONS INVOLVED IN THE 

SLATE-HOLDERS' REBELLION, 

AGAINST DEMOCKATIC PRINCIPLES AS WELL AS AGAINST 
THE NATIONAL UNITY. 



THE CASE FAIRLY STATED, IN AN ADDRESS TO ALL TRUE DEMOCRATS, 



SLAVERY AND NOBILITY versus DEMOCRACY. 



Few political convulsions have hitherto trans- 
pired, which have so much puzzled the world 
to get at the entire motives of the revolt, as the 
present insurrection in this country. Were 
public opinion to be made up from the politi- 
cal Literature of Great Britain, or its leading jour- 
nals, very little certainty would be arrived at as 
to the merits or demerits of the attempted rev- 
olution. The articles of De Bow's Review 
smack little more of a secession origin that the 
late dissertations on American politics appear- 
ing in the British periodicals. The statements 
of most of the leading English journals are quite 
in keeping. Any one accustomed to the " ear- 
marks" of secession phraseology and declama- 
tion would be at little loss to identify the 
Southern emissary in connection with the .-peri- 
odicals and press of the British Islands. Hence 
the hypocrisy and studied concealment of those 
hidden motives necessary to be made apparent, 
in order to judge of the merits of secession. 

The world has known, that for thirty years 
past there has been a feverish and jealous dis- 
content expressed in the cotton States. It had 
its first ebullition in 1832, when South Caro- 
lina assumed the right to nullify the revenue 
laws of Congress. Since that time the North 
has continually been accused of an aggressive 
policy. Various extravagant pretences have ] 
from time to time been raised up by the South, 
and urged as causes for dissolving the Union. 
They have always, until recently, been met by 
forbearance and compromise. 

The extension and perpetuation of slavery 
has been prominent as the open motive for 
Southern political activity ; and equally prom- 
inent as one of the motives for dismembering 
the Union. There has been another project, 
however, in connection with the attempted dis- 
solution of the Union, of a most alarming na- 
ture ; that project was the intended prostration 
of the democratic principle in Southern politics. 
While a privileged order in government was 
made the basis of political ambition by the as- 
pirants or leading spirits, it was also to be made 
the means of perpetuating the institution of 
slavery. Whether these adjuncts, slavery per- 



petuation, and government through a privileged 
class, were twins of the same birth, is not very 
material ; but whether they existed together as 
the joint motive to overthrow the national juris- 
diction, involves very deeply the present and 
continuing questions in American politics. 

To many gentlemen of intelligence and high 
standing in the South, the intended establish- 
ment of a different order of government, based 
on privilege of class, has appeared to be the 
ruling motive. They have set down the ex- 
pressed apprehension as to the insecurity of 
slavery as a hypocritical pretext for revolution ; 
believing that the more absorbing motive was 
to establish an order of nobility, either with or 
without monarchy. There is some plausibility 
for giving the ambitious motive the greater 
prominence ; but a more severe analysis of the 
whole question will, it is believed, place slavery 
perpetuation in the foreground as the origin of 
all other motives for the conspiracy. 

In classifying slaveholders, it is undoubtedly 
true that a small portion of them were Demo- 
crats in principle, and ardently attached to the 
National Governments— perhaps would have pre- 
ferred the abolition of slavery to the subversion 
of its jurisdiction. Another class, composing a 
majority, though distrusting the National Gov- 
ernment, connected as it was and must be with 
a voting power representing twenty-six or 
'-seven millions of free labor, yet more distrust- 
ed the attempt at revolution. This class saw 
more danger in the proposed revolt than from 
continuing in the Union. Another class was 
politically ambitious ; had ventured upon the 
revilemcnt of* the Democratic principle ; had 
become secessionists per se, and were the in- 
struments and plotters of the treason. This was 
substantially the condition of public opinion 
among slaveholders at the time of the election 
of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency. These throe 
classes, embracing the slaveholders and their 
families, composed about one million five hun- 
ched thousand of the white population of the 
South. 

Of the seven millions non-slaveholding pop- 
ulation South, a small portion was engaged in 



'i 11-go 



THE SLAVEHOLDERS CONSPIRACY 



trade and commerce, and naturally inclined to 
oppose secession ; but timid in its apprehen- 
sions as to protection, was ready to acquiesce 
in the most extravagant opinions ; in other 
words, like trade and commerce everywhere, 
too much disposed to make merchandise of its 
politics. The balance of the non-slaveholding 
population, if we except a venal pulpit and 
press, had not even a specious motive, pecu- 
niary or political, moral or social, that should 
have drawn it into rebellion. It was part and 
portion of the great brotherhood of free labor, 
and could not by any possibility raise up a 
a plausible pretence of jealousy against its na- 
tural ally — free labor in the North, 

In estimating the strength of a cause, we are 
obliged to take into account the actually exist- 
ing reasons in favor of its support. Delusion, 
founded on a fictitious cause of complaint, is 
but a weak basis for revolution. It may have 
an apparent strength to precipitate revolt, but 
has no power of endurance. There is a re- 
flection that comes through calamity and suffer- 
ing that rises superior to sophistry in the most 
common minds. If not already, this will soon 
be the case with the whole Southern population. 
The slaveholder and the man of trade and com- 
merce who feared the tumult, and would have 
avoided it, will have seen their apprehensions 
turned into the fulfilment of prophecy. The 
non-slaveholding farmer, mechanic, or laborer, 
will be made to see clearly that his interest did 
not hie on the side of treason. The political 
adventurer who planned the conspiracy, is 
already brought to see the fallacy of his dream. 
He may now consider the incongruous mate- 
rials of Southern population. He may view 
that population in classes. He may contem- 
plate it through the medium of its natural mo- 
tives of fidelity to the Government on the one 
hand, and of its artificial delusion on the 
other. He may now go to the bottom of 
Southern society, and find in its conflicting 
elements the antagonistic motives that render 
the plans of treason abortive. These will be 
sure to continue, and sure to strengthen on 
the side of fidelity to tho National Govern- 
ment. "When the South is made a solid, com- 
pact unit in political motive, it will become so 
disarmed of all purposes of treason. 

It has been repeatedly asserted that the 
^outh was a political unit on the question of 
attempted revolution. This declaration has 
been reiterated by the Southern press, by trav- 
ellers, and by all the influences connected with 
the rebellion. It is not now necessary to de- 
lineate tho quasi military organization of the 
Knights of the Golden Circle, or their opera- 
tions in cajoling and terrorizing the Southern 
population into acquiescence. Much unanim- 
ity through this process was made to appear 
on the surface ; but it is more palpable to the 
analytic mind acquainted with Southern so- 
ciety, that the very means employed to enforce 
acquiescence afforded also the evidence that 
there was a strong under-current of aversion. 
"Willing apostacy from allegiance to the Union 
needed no terrorizing from mobs or murderers. 

The ruffianism of the South had been fully 
armed in advance of the full disclosure of the 



plot to secede. Loyalty had as carefully been 
disarmed by the same active influences. It 
had nothing to oppose to arms but its unpro- 
tected sentiments. As soon as the law of force 
was invoked by the conspirators, the day of 
reasoning was wholly past. Flight or con- 
formity became the condition precedent of 
safety, even for life. The bulk of the South- 
ern population was as much conspired against 
as the Government at "Washington ; and force 
against the same population was rigorously 
called into requisition to consummate what 
fraud and political crime had concocted. This 
was the boasted unity of the South. 

The inquiry is often made : ' ' How was it 
possible to have inaugurated the rebellion, 
without the bulk of the slaveholders, at least, 
acting in concert ?" This inquiry is not easily 
answered unless its solution is found in the 
fact that slaveholders, through jealousy, had 
parted wdth their active loyalty to the National 
Government. This was generally the case. 
Whilst the bulk of them hesitated for a little 
to take the fearful step of revolt, their hesita- 
tion was more connected with apprehension of* 
its consequences than with any attachment to 
the Government. The deceptive idea of peace- 
able secession first drew them within the lines 
of the open traitor. The supposed probability 
of success made them allies in rebellion. Un- 
der this belief, they made their imaginary 
adieux to the Government of their fathers with- 
out apparent regret. 

There has been much misapprehension as to 
the process of reasoning that brought slave- 
holders in the main to repudiate their Govern- 
ment. They were influenced by no apprehen- 
sion of present danger to the institution of 
slavery. It was something far beyond the 
power of any party to stipulate against. Their 
apprehensions were connected with the laws of 
population and subsistence, and the certain 
motive to political affiliation that underlies the 
platform of free-labor society. "When indul- 
ging in the belief of peaceable secession, they 
expressed their sentiments truly in the delara- 
tion that ' ' they would not remain in the Union, 
were a blank sheet of paper presented, and they 
permitted to write their own terms." This decla- 
ration merely characterized the foregone con- 
clusion. It was the evidence of a previous de- 
termination, merely withheld for a season in 
order to gain time. 

But to come to a more definite delineation of 
the reasons that operated to raise up the con- 
spiracy. There was a partial feud that had 
long existed in the mutual jealousies between 
the slaveholding and non-slaveholding popula- 
tion. Nothing very remarkable, however,. had 
transpired to indicate an outbreak. Southern 
| white labor was continually annoyed with the 
.appellation of " white trash," and other con- 
i temptuous epithets ; but still was compelled 
to toil on under the continuous insult. The 
i supercilious conduct of slaveholders and their 
| families toward white labor, indicated but too 
| plainly that white labor did not command their 
I respect. Too many of the accidental drop- 
i pings of foolish and stupid arrogance were let 
fall within the hearing of white labor to make 



AGAINST DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES. 



it fully reconciled to the pretended monopoly I 
of respectability by slaveholders. Under this i 
corroded feeling, much of the white labor of 
the South had emigrated to the free States. 
In 1850, seven hundred and thirty-two thou- 
sand of these emigrants were living. Their 
communications and intercourse showed to 
their old friends, relatives, and acquaintances, 
that they had found homes and friendly treat- 
ment on Northern soil ; and in addition there- 
to, a much better and more encouraging con- 
dition of society for the industrious white 
man. The feeling reflected back from the 
free to the slave States was analogous to that 
thrown back from the United States to Ireland. 
Its effect was also the same. Under its influ- 
ence nearly two millions are now living in the 
free States who are the offshoot and increase 
of a Southern extraction. Slaveholders merely 
complained of this flow of population, on the 
ground that it contributed to overthrow the 
balance of political power. It woidd not, per- 
haps, be amiss to conclude that they saw with 
equal clearness the incentives that induced 
the emigration — a silent logic of facts against 
slavery. 

The census statistics, commencing with 1840, 
have contributed much to play the mischief 
with the equanimity of slaveholders. They 
have always known that thorough education in 
the South was mainly confined to their own 
families. When, however, the discovery was 
made public that only one in seven of the 
aggregate white population of the South was 
receiving instruction during the year, the dis- 
closure became alarming. * It stood little bet- 



EDCCAT10XAL CONDITIOX— CENSUS 1850. 



Maine . .1 in S'g 

New Hampshire 1 in 3)4 

Vermont. 1 in 3 ',' 

Michigan 1 in 3?< 

Ohio 1 in3. 3 4 

New York, native- 
born 1 in 3% 

Aggregate 1 in 4)4 

Massachusetts, na- 
tive-born 1 in 3% 

Aggregate. . . .1 in 4)4 

Pennsylvania, na- 
tive-born 1 in 4 

Aggregate 1 in 4% 

Rhode Island 1 in 4)4 

Connecticut 1 in 4)4 

Indiana 1 in 4)4 i 

Illinois 1 in 4)4 I Delaware 1 in 

EUROPEAN STATES. 

Denmark 1 in 4)4 

Sweden 1 in b)4 

Saxony 1 in 6 

Prussia 1 in 6 y 

Norway 1 in 7 

Great Britain 1 in 8# 

Actually receiv- 
ing instruction. 1 in 7 
Ireland 1 in 14 



Iowa 

Florida 

Louisiana. . 

Texas 1 in 8 

Virginia 1 in 8 

Alabama 1 in 7 

Arkansas 1 in 7 

Georgia 1 in 7 

Maryland 1 in 7 

South Carolina 1 in 7 

Mississippi 1 in 6 

Kentucky 1 in 6 

Missouri 1 in 6 

New Jersey 1 in 5 

North Carolina 1 in 5 

Wisconsin 1 in 5 

Tennessee I in 5 



1 in h)4 
1 in 10 
1 in 8 



Belgium a in 8)4 

France 1 in lOjijf 

Austria 1 in 13% 

Holland 1 in 14£ 

Greece 1 in 18 

Russia 1 in 50 

Portugal 1 in 81 

Spain Not known. 



M.'I.K COLOKK!) I'lirUT.vmV — UMTKIi STATU.-. 



Maine 1 in 5 

Rhode Island 1 in 6)4 

Massachusetts 1 in 6J£ 

New Hampshire 1 in 7 



Vermont 1 in 8 

Connecticut 1 in 6 

Pennsylvania 1 in 8 

New York 1 in 9 



It may be seen, by the foregoing table, that a thorough 
System of education for the masses requires that one third 
of the aggregate population should he kept at school for a 
goodly portion of the year. This is essential, under Demo- 
cratic Government, in order to bring each generation up 
to the appreciative point. 



ter than the educational progress of the British 
Islands, which had crept up, under the fight 
with Toryism, to the alarming extent of one in 
eight. That one in four and a half of the 
aggregate population of the free States was re- 
ceiving school instruction, made the contrast 
unpleasant to the mind of the slaveholder. 
He knew that the fact was ' world-wide, ' that 
slaveholders had always controlled the policy 
of Southern legislation. He was aware that 
slaveholders had made themselves responsible 
for this neglect of the children of the South ; 
and knew also that public opinion would visit 
the blame where it legitimately belonged. 
Pro-slavery sagacity was quick-sighted in its 
apprehensions that it could not dodge the in- 
quiry, ' "Whence comes this disparity ?" 

The statistics of the two sections presented 
a still more obnoxious comparison to the pro- 
slavery sensibilities, as it respects the physical 
condition of the respective populations. The 
cotton States have mostly been the advocates 
of 'free trade,' some of them tenaciously so. 
They deemed it impossible to introduce manu- 
facturing, to much extent, into sections where 
the yearly surpluses in production were wholly 
absorbed by investment in land and negroes. 
The consequence has been, want of diversified 
industry and want of profitable occupation for 
the poorer classes. In the Northern States, a 
different industrial policy has been pursued. 
Diversified occupation has raised up skilled 
labor in nearly every branch of industry. Not- 
withstanding the greater rigor of climate, adult 
labor on the average, under full and compen- 
sated employment, performs in the free States 
nearly three hundred solid days' work in the 
year. The eight millions of white population 
in the South, in consequence of this want of 
profitable occupation, perform much less, per- 
haps not one hundred and fifty days' work on 
the average. The following table published in 
1856, 1857, by Mr. Guthrie, then Secretary of 
the Treasury, discloses a condition of things 
very remarkable ; but nowise astonishing to 
those who have investigated the causes of the 
disparity. The ratio of annual per capita pro- 
duction to each man, woman, and child, white 
and black, in the respective States, exclusive 
of the gains or earnings of commerce, stood as 
follows : 



Massachusetts $166 

Rhode Island 164 

Connecticut 156 

California 149 

New jersey 120 

New Hampshire 117 

New York 112 

Pennsylvania 99 

Vermont 96 

niinois 89 

Missouri 88 

Delaware 85 

Maryland 83 

Ohio 75 

Michigan 72 

Kentucky 71 



It is seen by this table that the income, or 
product of the non-slaveholding poprdation 
South, mainly disconnected as it is with me- 
chanical industry, is reduced to the extreme 
level of bare subsistence, while the population 







$71 11 


61 

05 
60 


Indiana 

Wisconsin 

Mississippi 


69 12 

68 41 

. 67 50 

65 47 


17 


Louisiana 


. 65 30 
. 63 10 


30 





. 61 45 

. 59 42 


94 


South Carolina 


. 56 91 
. 55 72 


27 


Florida 


54 77 
52 04 


82 
54 

82 


District of Columbia 

Texas 

North Carolina 


. 52 00 

51 13 

. 49 38 



6 



THE SLAVEHOLDERS CONSPIRACY 



of the States which have introduced diversified 
industry stands on a high scale of production. 
Contrast Massachusetts and South Carolina, the 
two leading States in the promulgation of oppo- 
site theories. These two States have often been 
censured for the contumelious manner in which 
they have sometimes sought to repel each other's 
arguments. The one is in favor of ' free trade. ' 
The other says : ' No State can flourish to much 
extent without diversified industry.' The one 
says : ' Open everything to free competition. ' 
The other replies : ' Are you aware that the in- 
terest on manufacturing capital in Europe is 
much lower ; that skilled labor is more abun- 
dant ; and that free trade would dash to the 
ground most of the manufacturing we have 
started into growth under protection through 
our revenue laws?' 'Let it be so,' says Caro- 
lina ; ' what right exists to adopt a national 
policy that does not equally benefit all sections ?' 
' The very object of the policy,' replies Massa- 
chusetts, ' is, that it should benefit all sections ; 
and the most desirable object of all, in the eye 
of beneficence, would be. that it should benefit 
the laboring white population of the cotton 
States, as well as others. ' ' But, ' says Carolina, 
' this diversified industry can not be introduced, 
to much extent, where slavery exists. ' ' That 
is an argument by implication, ' says Massachu- 
setts, ' that you more prize slavery than you do 
the interests and welfare of the bulk of your 
white population. ' ' Who set you up to be a 
judge on the question of the welfare of any 
part of the popidation South ?' ' I assume to 
judge for myself,' rephes Massachusetts, ' as to 
that national policy which is designed to affect 
beneficially the twenty-seven millions of people 
who are obliged to obtain subsistence through 
personal industry ; theirs is the great cause of 
white humanity in its shirt sleeves ; and it be- 
hooves the National Government to take care 
of that cause, and to foster it ; and not to sub- 
mit to the narrow selfishness of a few slave- 
holders. ' 

It may readily be seen that this controversy, 
growing out of the opposite theories of selfish 
slaveholders on the one hand, and a spirit of 
beneficence, blended with the idea of a wide- 
spread advantage on the other, not only involves 
directly the demerits of slavery in its prejudical 
effect on the non-slaveholding population, but 
also the great question of raising up skilled 
labor in all the States. It is thus clearly de- 
monstrated that our national policy should be 
exempt from the control of an arrogant and 
selfish class. Slaveholders have had little sym- 
pathy with the great bulk of the white people 
in the Union ; at most, they have never mani- 
fested it. Few of them can be trusted politi- 
cally, where a broad industrial policy is con- 
cerned. No one is better aware than the polit- 
ical slaveholder of the crushing effect of slavery 
on the interests of the non-slaveholding popu- 
lation in the slave States ; hence their jealousy 
of this population as a voting, governing power. 
The Southern political mind, connected with 
slaveholding, is astute when sharpened by jeal- 
ousy. There -is no phase in political economy, 
bearing on the disparity of classes in the South, 
that has not been taken into the account and 



analyzed. The fear with slaveholders has been , 
that the great majority, composed of the white 
laboring population South, would become able 
to subject matters to the same scrutinizing anal- 
ysis. 

It would be difficult to convince the Ameri- 
can people that slavery is not ' the skeleton in 
their closet,' Any one who has encountered 
for years the pro-slavery spirit : who has 
watched it through its unscrupulous deviations 
from rectitude, morally, socially, and politically, 
will have been dull of comprehension not to 
have appreciated its atrocious disposition. Its 
great instrumentality in the management of 
Southern masses, consists not only of a disre- 
gard, but of a positive interdict of the princi- 
ples of civil liberty, in all matters wherein the 
prejudical effects of slavery might directly, or 
by implication, be disclosed. It is, true, people 
are permitted to adulate slavery — so they are 
allowed to adulate kings, where kings reign. 
No one in recent years has been allowed to open 
expression or argument as to the bad effect of 
a pro-slavery policy on the great majority of 
Southern white popidation. This woidd bring 
the offender within the Southern definition of an 
' incendiary,' and the offence woidd be heinous. 
The pro-slavery spirit has always demanded 
sycophancy where its strength was great enough 
to enforce it, and has ever been ready to involve 
the law of force where its theories were contra- 
dicted. Even the fundamental law of the South, 
contained in Southern State Constitutions in 
favor of the ' freedom of speech, and freedom 
of the press, ' is mere rhetorical flourish, where 
slavery is concerned. It means that you must 
adulate slavery if you speak of it ; and woe to 
the man that gives this fundamental law any 
broader interpretation. In its amiable moods, 
the pro-slavery spirit is often made to appear 
the gentleman. In its angry, jealous moods, it 
is both a ruffian and an assassin. Mr. Sumner, 
of the Senate, once sat for its picture — twee in 
his turn he drew it — each portrait was a faith- 
ful resemblance. 

Had we been exempt from slavery and its 
influences, it is difficult to conceive what pos- 
sible pretence coidd have been raised up for 
revolution. What position could have been 
taken showing the necessity of disenthral- 
roent from oppressive government ? There 
would have existed no element of political dis- 
content that could by any possibility have cul- 
minated in rebellion, aside from the active, 
jealous, and unscrupulous influence of slave- 
holders. Rebellion and treason required the 
lead and direction of an ambitious and reck- 
less class ; a class actuated by gross and selfish 
passions, in disconnection with sympathy for 
the masses. It required a class stripped and 
bereft by habits of thinking of the spirit of po- 
litical beneficence, devoid of national honor, 
national pride, and national fidelity. Nothing 
less unscrupulous would have answered to plot, 
to carry forward, and to manage the incidents 
j of the attempted dismemberment of the Union. 
I It required something worse in its nature than 
I Benedict Arnold susceptibility. His might 
| have been crime, springing from sudden re- 
j sentment or imaginary wrong. The other is 



AGAINST DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES 



the result of thirty years' concoction under I atrocious wrong, is the same. The disposition 
adroit, hypocritical, and unscrupulous leaders. I to crash by force any attempt to vindicate 
The slaveholders' rebellion has assumed a mag- i natural rights, or to modify the status of so- 
nitude commensurate only with long contem- ! ciety under the severity of oppression, is the 
plation of the subject. Making all due allow- same ; and no tyranny has yet been found so 
ance for the honorable exceptions, this is sub- tenacious or objectionable as the tyranny of a 
stantially the ifliase of rjro-slavery infidelity to class held together by the "bond of iniquity." 
the Union. ! Our forefathers had a just conception of the 

Were further argument needed to establish I nature of the case, on one hand, when they in- 
this position, it is found in the fact that the ! terdicted, by fundamental law, the establish- 
of rebellion are wanting in proportion to j ment of any order of nobility. Many of them 

' were sorely distressed at the contemplation of 
slavery on the other hand, in connection with 
its probable results upon the national welfare. 
Our calamity is but the fulfilment of their 
prophecies. They well knew the nature of the 
evil we have to deal with. 

It is matter of astonishment to most minds 
that slaveholders should have contemplated the 
bold venture of subordinating the Democratic 
principle in government. It will be less aston- 
ishing, however, when it is duly considered 
that it is utterly impossible for democracy and 
slavery to abide long together. The one or the 
other must, ere long, have been prostrated 
under the laws of population, and it is not 
very likely that the twenty-seven millions and 
their increase would consent to be subordinated 
l- | to the policy of three hundred and fifty thou- 
mine its national pride. It still retains its rep- sand slaveholders. Slavery must exist as the 
resentation in Congress against the influences ruling political power, or it cannot long exist 
of surrounding treason. There is a cheering at all. This the slaveholders well knew ; hence 
satisfaction in the belief that this plateau of the necessity of fortifying itself through some 



the absence of slavery. There is no reason to 
believe that Kentucky or Maryland, without 
slavery, would have been less loyal than Ohio. 
In Eastern Kentucky, Western Virginia, East- 
ern Tennessee, Western North Carolina, a 
small portion of Georgia, and Northern Ala- 
bama, the Union cause finds a friend's country. 
These sections, in the main, contain a popula- 
tion dependent upon its own labor for subsist- 
ence. Schooled by diligent industry to habits 
of perseverance, and learning independence 
and manhood by relying on itself, it has pre- 
served its patriotism and attachment to the 
Government under which it was born. It saw 
no cause of complaint, imaginary or real. Six 
or seven per cent, of slave population has not 
proved sufficient as a slave interest, to prostrate 
or corrupt its national fidelity, nor to under- 



civil liberty and freedom, even unassisted 
could not have been permanently held in sub- 
jection by the myrmidons of rebellion. The 
secessionists themselves bestow a high com- 
pliment to the patriotism of v this people, 
when they complain of its "idolatrous attach- 
ment to the old government. " 

The time has come when the American 
people, from necessity, must analyze to their 
root the whole aptitudes and incidents of 
slavery. They are now obliged to deal with it, 
unbridled by the check-rein of its apologists. 
Under the best behavior of slaveholders, the 
institution could not rise above the point of 
bare toleration. There is so much inherent in 



political arrangement against the Democratic 
power of the masses. 

The South Carolina platform for a new gov- 
ernment had a close resemblance to the ancient 
Roman — a patrician order of nobility, founded 
on the interested motive to uphold slavery ; 
but, allowing plebeian representation, to some 
extent, to the non-slaveholding classes. Others 
in the South had preference for constitutional 
monarchy, with a class of privileged legislators 
and House of Commons, composing a govern- 
ment of checks and balances, analogous to the 
English government. Whatever the plan 
adopted, the leading idea was to institute a 
government that should be impervious, through 



the system that will not bear analysis, so much j one branch, to the future influence of the non- 
of collateral mischief, so much tending to over- | slaveholding majority. 



turn and discourage the principles of justice 
that ought to be interwoven into the relation- 



It is difficult to make entirely clear the am- 
bitious motives and mixed apprehensions that 



of society, that it is impossible for the j have combined to precipitate the Southern 
ingenuous mind to advocate slavery per se. It 1 slaveholders into rebellion. The defectiveness 
is not, however, to the bare dominion itself, of the educational system of the South, and 



that the objection is exclusively raised up. It is 
the inevitable result of that dominion, in con- 
nection with the worst cultivated passions of 
human nature, that the exception is more 
broadly taken. The dominion of the master 
over the slave involves, in a great measure, the 
necessary dominion over the persons and in- 
terests of the balance of society where it exists. 
The lust of power on the part of slaveholders, 
and on the part of the privileged classes in 
Europe, in nature, is the same. The deter- 
mination through the artificial arrangements of 

power, to subsist on the toil of others, is the >. interests were identified with the Northern cdu- 
same. The arrogant assumption of the right I cational and industrial policy. _ They appre- 
to maintain as privilege what originated in j ciated fully that through these interests, free 



the known responsibility of slaveholders for 
such defect and its consequences ; the de- 
fect in the industrial policy, and the responsi- 
bility of slavery itself for the depressing conse- 
quences to the non-slaveholding population, 
were fearful charges. A knowledge that the 
causes of depression must soon be brought to 
the examination of Southern masses, in con- 
trast with a better state of things in the North, 
filled the minds of slaveholders with jealous 
and fearful apprehensions toward the non- 
slavsholding population. They knew that its 



THE SLAVEHOLDERS CONSPIRACY 



labor in the South had every motive to affinity pings' from secessionists in their cups, has had 
with the North, educationally, politically, and : little difficulty in determining the ultimatum in 



industrially. They were astute in the discov 
ery that under the operation of the Democratic 
principle, free discussion, and fair play of rea- 
son, the pro-slavery presto- aust soon go 
down in the So" +1 - ' jater numeri- 

" ol f fc was, there- 

ed, to over- 
: — oocs m the South, but 
L ^di^e thein the instruments of their own 
overthrow as to political power. 

The measurable acquiescence of the non- 
slaveholding population was indispensable to 
the revolutionary project. Without it, there 
was but little numerical force. It was, there- 
fore, of entire consequence to make this pop- 
ulation hate the North— to hate the National 
Government, and to train it for the purposes of 
rebellion. The press was suborned wherever 
it could be. The pulpit manifested equal alac- 
rity, in order to keep pace with the workings 
of the virus of treason. Leading men, assum- 
ing to be statesmen and political economists, 
taxed their ingenuity in the invention of false- 
hood. The effort of the press and politicians 
was directed to misrepresenting and dispara- 
ging the condition of free labor in the North ; 
whilst the Southern pulpit was religiously en- 
gaged in establishing the divinity of slavery. 
It would require a volume to delineate the arts 
and hypocrisy resorted to, and the false reason- 
ing employed, to impose upon the masses of 
white labor South, and to make them contented 
with their disparaged condition. It is needless 
to say, the work of imposition was too effectual- 
ly accompUshed. It must be confessed that 
too much of the non-slaveholding population 
had been induced to follow the political Iagos 
of the South, and thus to assist the first act in 
the plan for its own subversion — separation 
from the North. The next step in the plan of 
subversion, the ' ' abrogation of a government 
of majorities," was carefully kept from the 
public view. 

The inquiry naturally arises, as to how or 
why this design for the arrangement of political 
power in the Southern Confederacy has been 
confined within such narrow degrees of disclo- 
sure. The answer is plain. A bold proposition 
to change the principles of their government 
would have alarmed the people of the South 
into an intensified opposition. The politicians 
of South Carolina, more open and frank in the 
exposition of their views than other leaders in 
the South, have been obliged to submit the con- 
trol of their discretion to the more crafty and 
subtle influences of other States. Policy re- 



the designs of treason. He will have become 
convinced that it is nothing less than a warfare 
against the continuation of Democratic govern- 
ment in the South' — that this warfare is stimu- 
lated by the fixed belief that a government of 
majorities must be superseded, in order to per- 
petuate the institution of slavery. 

Were argument wanting to force this conclu- 
sion on the mind, it would be supplied in the 
established affinity between the emissary of 
secession in Europe and the virulent haters of 
Democratic government there found. The lib- 
eralists of England and elsewhere have been 
sedulously avoided ; not so those who would 
connive to bring Democratic government into 
disrepute. With these last-mentioned classes, 
the secessionists have met with a ready sym- 
pathy and encouragement, almost as much so, 
as if treason in America involved directly the 
stability of privileged power on that continent. 
The Tories of England, the anti-democratic 
forces of France, the nauseous ingredients of 
the House of Hapsburg, the degenerate nobility 
of Spain, and from that down to the ' German 
Prince of a five-acre patch, ' have been the con- 
genial allies of secession emissaries in Europe. 
It mattered not to these haters of enfranchised 
masses, how much misery might be inflicted on 
the American people. They cared little for the 
anguish of mind that was being everywhere felt 
by the supporters of liberalized opinions. They 
rejoiced at the supposed calamities of that gov- 
ernment whose beneficent policy had always 
been to keep the peace, to avoid the necessity 
of standing armies, to foster industry and edu- 
cation, and in addition thereto, to encourage 
the depressed of Europe to come and accept 
homes and hospitable treatment on the soil of 
the country. These revilers of Democracy in 
Europe were long advised with, were consulted 
beforehand, and knew the plottings of the pro- 
slavery spirit in its preparation for rebellion. 
They were indifferent as to the character or 
hateful deformity of the agency to be employed, 
provided it could be made instrumental in 
breaking the jurisdiction of a government, 
heretofore more esteemed by the enlightened 
liberalists of the world than any other that ever 
existed. Neither the secessionists nor their co- 
plotters in Europe required seducing or pros- 
elyting. They stood on the same level of affin- 
ity, the moment the secessionists proposed the 
overthrow of the Democratic principle.. This 
was the promise, the condition precedent, and 
this the basis of alliance between the plotters 
of treason in free America and their coadjutors 
It would be both shallow and useless 



quired that the contemplated new form of gov- | abroad, 

ernment should be confined to the knowledge to charge the origin of sympathy with rebellion 
of the leading spirits only. It would not bear projects, expressed by political circles in Eu- 
tne hazards of submission to the people as a rope, to the mercenary motives of commerce, 
basis ot revolution. Its success depended upon | trade, or manufactures. Those were stand- 
secresy and coupling the adoption of the plan I i ng on a board foundation of contented re- 
with a sudden denouement after revolution. Any | ciprocitv, and were the first to dread the tu- 
one conversant with the pages of De Bow's Re- j mult that could not fail to prove prejudicial 
mew, tor the last ten years, and who has watched We shall hunt in vain to find the motive for 
the drift ot argument mrevilmg the masses, and I European sympathy in rebellion, elsewhere 
condemning their connection with government ; I than in hatred of Democracy. We shall also 
and accustomed also to the ' accidental drop- i search in vain to find the motive for the wide- 



AGAINST DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES. 



spread sympathy expressed by the liberalists 
of Europe in the Union cause, elsewhere 
than in their attachment to liberalize institu- 
tions. 

Having glanced at the compound motive for 
establishing the Southern Confederacy, that is, 
slavery perpetuation through prostration of the 
Democratic principle, it may not be amiss to 
refer to the contemplated management of its 
politico-economic interests. These were to be 
built up, of course ; but not through a system 
of diversified industry ; for free trade, as is well 
known, would have the effect to prostrate what 
little manufacturing had been commenced in 
the Southland afford a perpetual bar to the 
success of future undertakings. It was believed 
that the foul elements North and South, and 
the illicit traders of the world beside, could be 
brought together in the business of free trade 
and smuggling. The immense frontier would 
render it impossible for the Northern States to 
protect themselves to much extent from illicit 
trade through any preventive service possible 
to be adopted. The Mexican frontier would be 
entirely helpless. Thus reasoned Sccesh. This 
was to have been the basis of competition with 
Northern mechanism. The reasonings of the 
conspirators were consistent with the merits 
and morals of the conspiracy. They calculated 
upon the active co-operation of the mercenary 
in the North, and actually believed that the 
temptation to gain would prove predominant 
over any efforts the Northern Government could 
make to protect its revenue policy. They 
boldly ventured upon the assumption that the 
influence of illicit traffic would soon become too 
strong to be resisted, and that in this manner, 
in conjunction with the agency of ' King Cot- 
ton, ' the commerce of the North would be trans- 
ferred to the South. 

Another item in Southern political economy 
was the project of reopening the African slave- 
trade. The leaders of the secession programme 
had made this a prominent feature in starting 
the rebellion into growth. The various phases 
which this branch of the question afterward 
underwent, was owing to the opposition of the 
Border States. So much were the people of 
the Border States averse to being brought into 
competition with slave-breeding in Dahomey, 
that the original conspirators were obliged to 
forego, for a time at least, this incident in the 
motives of the earlier revolutionists. 

A government founded on the supremacy of 
a class, and that class to be composed of slave- 
holders ; a political economy founded on slave 
labor, free trade, illicit trade, and African kidnap- 
ping, were associations that would require great 
strength and influence to sustain them, The 
strongest military organization was therefore 
contemplated. In this, much employment 
could be given to the non-slaveholdiug masses, 
while military qualities of supposed superiority 
would enable the Southern Confederacy to en- 
ter into a successful contest with the North for 
empire. The potency of ' King Cotton ' was to 
be made the powerful agency with which the 
rest of the civilized world was to be dragooned 
into acquiescence, on this delusive dream was 
built the fabric of that mighty empire, whose 



history, from its origin to its subversion, is 
nearly ready to be written. 

It must be acknowledged that the leading in- 
fluences of the rebellion were as sharp-sighted 
as political vice, or political irnmorality is ever 
capable of becoming. Like all other vice, 
however, it based its reasonings and suppositi- 
tious strength exclusively on its powers of de- 
ception, in conjunction with the iniquitous ap- 
titudes of itself and its coadjutors. It found 
co-plotters in the stockholders of the African 
Slave-trade Association, scattered from Maine 
to Texas, and in its suborned press in New 
York, Baltimore, Charleston, and New Orleans. 
It had bargained with the politically vitiated 
portion of the Northern Democracy for assist- 
ance, and had received a wicked though falla- 
cious assurance from the Northern kidnappers, 
to the effect, that the Democracy of the North 
would neutralize any attempt to oppose seces- 
sion by force. They had arranged for their 
diplomatic influence on the other side of the 
Atlantic, and bargained for the, subversion of 
Democracy in the South. It planned before- 
hand for arming treason and disarming the 
Union, and most adroitly were its plans in this 
respect earned into effect. It had gained over 
to its side most of the Southern material in the 
little army and navy of the country, and pre- 
pared it for perfidy, in committing devastation 
or theft on the public property. Thus allied 
and thus equipped, in the confidence of its per- 
nicious strength, it commenced its warfare on 
society. 

' How much injury can we inflict upon the 
North? How much of the debts owing to 
Northern citizens can we confiscate? How 
much property in the South owned by North- 
j era men can we appropriate ? How much can 
I we make Northern commerce suffer by depres- 
I sion of business, privateering, or otherwise ? 
| To what extent can we paralyze Northern me- 
chanical industry, subvert Northern trade, and 
! lay it under disabilities ? How much can we 
[ distress the laboring classes in England, in 
I France, in other countries in Europe, whereby 
I we may compel them to clamor for the inter- 
| vention of their respective governments against 
the North, and against its attempts to uphold 
the Union ?' The whole reasoning of the con- 
i spirators was based on the supposed power, 
coupled with the intent and effort to inflict 
wide-spread and common injury. The 6cheme 
and all its contemplated and attempted inci- 
dents of management were such as the pro- 
slavery spirit in politics only could engender. 

It required many years of gradual develop- 
ment, in connection with the ultimate culmi- 
nation of treason, to shake the confidence of 
the North in the disposition of the people of 
j the South. There was, and could be, no pos- 
sible intelligent motive for the masses of the 
! South to change their form of government, or 
j to enter into rebellion against it. The argu- 
ments of the plotters of treason against a 'gov- 
I eminent of majorities' — the doctrine of ' State 
rights,' with the right to secede at the option 
of a State — the quasi repudiation of the ' white 
trash,' so called as an clement of political 
equality, were regarded as the ebullitions of a 



10 



THE SLAVEHOLDERS CONSPIRACY 



politically vitiated class who would be willing 
to overthrow the National Government, but 
who were supposed to be too few in numbers 
to taint with poisonous fatahty the pobtical 
mind of the South. It is not established as 
yet that the Southern political mind in the main 
has become depraved. It is, however, estab- 
lished, that the leading political influences 
South have cajoled and terrorized the bulk of 
the Southern population into apparent ac- 
quiescence in treason. It yet remains to 
be seen what despotism will be disclosed 
by the Southern people as soon as protec- 
tion is guaranteed to them against the 
tyranny and usurpations of the rebel influ- 
ence. It is prophesied that there will be 
found a heart in the bulk of the Southern 
population ; that it will still cling with affec- 
tion and pride to that government which was 
their guarantee, and which no power now on 
earth is competent to shake. It is not against 
the deluded, the timid, or the helpless of the 
South that we would make the indictment for 
political crime. It is the perfidious pro- 
slavery spirit in politics that we seek to ar- 
raign. 

The analysis of developed motives in which 
the slaveholders' rebellion had its origin, must 
naturally excite the inquiry in the American 
mind, as to how far the slaveholding element 
can be trusted. As a political force, we find it 
sowing the seeds of political discontent. As 
an anti-democratic element, we find it plotting 
the overthrow of democratic government. In 
its efforts to denationalize republican govern- 
ment in America, it has not scrupled to seek 
aid from, and alliance with, the haters of re- 
publican institutions everywhere. Under such 
calamitous teachings as it has inflicted can we 
longer conclude that it can, from its aptitudes 
and nature, be converted into an element of 
national strength? There is a South, and a 
great South, and would continue to be, were 
there not a negro or slaveholder sojourning 
there. The seven millions non- slaveholding 
population in the Southern States have rights, 
social and political, based on the motive to 
maintain republican government. The Con- 
stitution of the Union, as the highest principle 
of fundamental law, guarantees in express 
terms, to every State, the form of a republi- 
can government; and not less by implica- 
tion, the essential qualities of an actual one. 
It matters not how much the non-slave- 
holding population of the South may have 
been deluded, nor how much it may have been 
incited, under that delusion, to act as the in- 
strument of its own overthrow. This popula- 
tion is not less the object of just political 
sobcitude than any equal number of people 
North. That its general education has not 
been advanced to the appreciative point, is its 
misfortune. That it has been surrounded by a , 
pro-slavery influence, selfish, arrogant, and 
contemptuous of the interest of tho masses, is 
equally so. That it has been less favored than 
its brotherhood of free labor in the North — 
that it has been placed under disabilities in the \ 
comparison, are only additional reasons for in- j 
creased solicitude for the welfare and future | 



advancement of this portion of Southern popu- 
lation. While it has been imposed upon, and 
much of it deluded in its motives to action, its 
actual condition is in reality coupled with 
every natural incentive to alliance and adhesion 
to the National Government. It has drunk 
the bitter cup of calamity in rebellion. It has 
tasted the dregs of treason that he at the bot- 
tom of pohtical vice, and been victimized by 
destitution, by the diseases of camp-life, by 
the casualties of the battle-field, and by the 
widowhood and orphanage that have followed 
the train of rebellion. This population is a 
natural element of national strength, having 
the same incentives as its brotherhood in the 
North. Arms will soon remove the blockade 
to its intercourse with the North, and civil 
liberty once established, will most likely secure 
it to the side of national patriotism. 

There is a question of equal magnitude 
respecting the colored population, not only of 
the South, but of the whole country. It is in- 
volved in the inquiry : Can the colored popula- 
tion be converted into an element of national 
strength? Physiologically and mentally, the 
native negro race stands as the middle-man in 
the five races— the Caucasian and Malay being 
above, and* the American aborigines and the 
Alforian below. The mixture of blood with 
the Caucasian in America, places the negro 
element of the United States at least upon a 
level with the Malay race in natural powers, 
and from association, much the superior in 
practical intelligence. Notwithstanding the 
crushing laws designed by slaveholders to per- 
petuate the ignorance and helplessness of the 
negro, he would improve. Notwithstanding the 
brutal and studied policy of" slaveholders to 
slander and disparage the negro capacity for 
improvement, all the arts of lying hypocrisy 
have occasionally been set at naught by somo 
convincing exhibition of truth, springing from 
a fair experiment on the colored man's suscep- 
tibilities. The white man's dishonoring in- 
clination to strike the helpless — made helpless 
by brutal laws— has occasionally recoiled in an 
exposure of the atrocious practice. The late 
attempt to introduce a bill into the South 
Carolina Legislature, providing for the sale of 
the free negroes of the State into slavery, led 
to a disclosure worthy of contemplation. The 
Committee to whom the bill was referred stated 
that— 

' Apart from the consideration that many of 
the class wero good citizens, patterns of in- 
dustry, sobriety, and irreproachable conduct, 
there were difficulties of a practical icharacter 
in the way of those who advocated the bill. 
The free colored population of Charleston alone 
pay taxes on $1,561,870 worth of property ; 
and the aggregate taxes reach $27,209 18. 
"What will become of the one and a half mil- 
lions of property which belongs to them in 
( 'harloston alone, to say nothing of their prop- 
erty elsewhere in the State ? Can it enter into 
the mind of any Carolina Legislature to confis- 
cate this property, and put it in the Treasury ? 
We forbear to consider anything so full of in- 
justice and wickedness. While we are battling 
for our rights, liberties, and institutions, can 



AGAINST DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES. 



11 



we expect the smiles and cotmtenance of the 
Arbiter of all events, when we make war on 
the impotent and unprotected, enslave them 
against all justice, and rob them of the prop- 
erty acquired by their own honest toil and in- 
dustry, under your former protection and sense 
ot justice ?'* 

This slight exhibition in. the Carolina Legis- 
lature presents an epitome of the whole argu^ 
ment of cultivated brutality on the one hand, 
and of human sense and rationality on the 
other. What were the protection and sense of 
justice here spoken of ; and what the sequences 
flowing from such protection and justice ? The 
whole question is answered in three words : 
Improvement, following encouragement. What 
was the ' robbery* proposed by the bill, other 
than the concomitants of slavery, that have 
robbed the colored man from generation to gen- 
eration, not only of his toil, but of every prac- 
tical motive to be a man? It would be need- 
less, however, to discuss the question of the 
colored man's rapacity to improve, were it not 
for considerations that now make it neces- 
sary, under national calamity, to take into 
truthful account. The white man's cultivation 
of barbarity under the teachings of slaveholders 
has hitherto proved an overmatch for the color- 
ed man's claims in the abstract. Things and 
conditions are now changed. The slaveholders' 
rebellion has softened the obduracy of manufac- 
tured prejudice, and necessity has become 
allied with humanity. The pro-slavery spirit 
in politics is now discovered to be little short of 
a demon — a snake's egg that hatches treason. 
The American mind is nearly forced to the 
conclusion, that as long as colored women are 
compelled to breed slaves their white mistresses 
will continue to breed rebels. Slavery, of 
course, must yield to the necessity of national 
security. A remnant may exist for a while, 
and linger through modifications of a broken 
and helpless pro-slavery prestige, the duration 
depending entirely upon the disposition of 
slaveholders to become subordinated to law. 
Perpetuation, however, has become a word 
that has no meaning in connection with the 
duration of slavery. The word in that sense 
has become obsolete ; and what shall become 
of the colored man, and how shall he be treated 
is, and is to be, the sequence of the conspiracy 
to overthrow the jurisdiction of the Govern- 
ment. It being established that the pro-slavery 
spirit by nature, is the antagonist of the demo- 
cratic principle — the antagonist of the inter- 
ests of the masses, the hot-bed for the cultiva- 
tion of brutality, devoid of fidelity, and a rebel 
by practice, it has become an intolerable ele- 
ment of national weakness. We cannot avoid 
the inquiry, now to be made on the basis of hu- 
manity : Can the colored man, by proper and 
just encouragement, be converted into an ele- 
ment of patriotism and national strength ? 



* The free colored population of Charleston, in I860, did 
aot var,y materially from lour thousand. Th.; . 
valae of their property would givo to each $390. Each 
family of six persons would possess, according to this 
estimate, $2,340. This would be a full averago of wealth 
to the free population of tho United States — the amount 
varying fn the different States from $2,200 to $2,500 to 
each family of six persons. 



What is the solution of the riddle as it re- 
spects the strength of democratic government? 
It has heretofore been said by the revilers of 
the masses in America, that ' for two hundred 
years the scum, the crime, and poverty of Eu- 
rope have been cast upon the shores of the At- 
lantic. ' It is immaterial to the question of hu- 
manity, whether such has been the seed from 
which a new nation has been raised up in the 
wilderness. A few months since, ' Democracy 
on its trial, ' was the favorite theme of Demo- 
cracy-haters in Europe. The indictment 
against our free institutions was freighted with 
fearful charges. The government of the Union 
was a ' delusive Utopia. ' ' The people of the 
North had degenerated into a mob. ' ' Society 
was drifting into the maelstrom of anarchy, 
and law and order becoming extinct. ' A little 
time, and an apparently unwarlike people had 
changed into an astonishing organization, dis- 
ciplined for warfare. Seven hundred thousand 
bayonets, as if by enchantment, bristled in 
menace to the slaveholders' rebellion. The 
navy-yards and arsenals resounded with the 
clang of hammers, and soon the suddenly 
created armaments appeared on the waters. 
Power in finance exhibited by the Government, 
based on the confidence and patriotism of the 
people, was no less astonishing. New inven- 
tions of warfare changed the scoffings in Eu- 
rope into alarm for their own security. The 
trans-Atlantic revilers of republicanism in 
America have discovered a people who had a 
heart in them. Patriotism in America is reas- 
sured of success by the exhibition of a deep- 
seated attachment on the part of the Northman 
to his Government. Seven words suffice to 
solve the riddle of free democratic strength — 

THE MASSES CONVEKTED INTO BEINGS OF POWEB. 

This is the theory, the basis, the strength of 
free institutions in America. They have no 
other ftnindation. They have nothing else to 
rely on for enduring support. 

Let the Southern rebel attempt to disguise it 
as he may, the colored man of the South is 
already a patriot on the side of the Union. He 
has heard of a people in the North who 
believed that every human being, by nature, 
was entitled to 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happi7iess.' He knows that his oppressor hates 
this people of the North, and for the sole rea- 
son that they entertain this generous sentiment. 
While the Pharisaic theologian of the Southern 
pulpit is expounding his Bible-doctrine in jus- 
tification of kidnapping, and appealing to Hea- 
ven for assistance, the colored man turns in 
disgust at the impiety, and turns into secret 
places to beseech Omnipotence to favor the suc- 
cess of the national arms. Perhaps there is an 
interfering Providence already manifest in re- 
sults. H the plagues of Egypt had been visited 
on the rebellious States by an overruling Power, 
they would scarcely have afforded a parallel to 
the calamity which rebel slaveholders have in- 
flicted on their country. They have exhausted 
and destroyed much of what the long toil of 
the colored man South had assisted to raise up. 
Devastation has followed the train of rebellion. 
The blood of the first and of the second born 
has been the sacrifice on the altar of slavery. 



12 



THE SLAVEHOLDERS CONSPIRACY 



The brutal ruffianism of the pro-slavery spirit 
has far enough disclosed its natural aptitudes 
to have become disgustingly odious in compari- 
son with the positively better characteristics of 
the colored man. The rebel himself has 
taught a lesson to the world, which he can 
never unteach. The twenty-seven millions of 
free labor in the Union have learned a lesson 
through the teachings of slaveholders in rebel- 
lion, which they can not forget. This teaching 
is nothing less than that the colored man is 
capable, by protection and encouragement, of 
being converted into a better element of na- 
tional strength and national prosperity than 
slaveholders, as such, would ever become. 

Could any contemplative mind doubt for a 
moment the ability of the white population of 
the Union, if justly disposed, to raise the col- 
ored population of the country, in a short time, 
to the platform of a decent respectability? 
With unjust prejudice laid aside, and the work 
of beneficence acquiesced in, no one coidd rea- 
sonably doubt it. Who deserves best at the 
hands of the nation's power, the oppressor or 
the oppressed? The one that grasps at the 
throat of the nation and attempts its overthrow 
merely to perpetuate his power of oppression, 
or the other who is crying to humanity for pro- 
tection ? The voice of nature, if undefiled, will 
answer this question on the side of humanity — 

if not, NECESSITY WILL. 

The democratic theory, which seeks to ab- 
solve humanity from oppression, is not confined 
to the resistance of a single despot. It goes in 
the same degree to a privileged class that arro- 
gates to itself the right to oppress ; nor does it 
stop at the halfway house of mere negative pro- 
tection. It allows in its onward course the full 
fruition of ' equality before the law. ' In the- 
ory, the law is the sovereign, and we seek to 
attach such qualities to that sovereign as are 
compatible with the general good of society. 
That theory places no man above the law, nor 
any man below its protection. As soon as the 
individual in society is raised to the point of 
negative protection, he is in a measure con- 
verted into a being of power. He can then ap- 
peal to his sovereign, the law, for the vindica- 
tion of his rights. Experience is continually 
demonstrating that men are respected in pro- 
portion to their power to command respect. 
The very existence of slavery requires and de- 
mands the brutalization of the governing power 
that upholds it. Were society absolved from 
this tyranny, matters would begin to mend. 
Equalized protection would be the consequence. 
Protection, not only to the colored man, but 
protection in an almost equal degree to the non- 
slaveholding white population, hitherto brought 
under the ban of disability by a depressing pro- 
slavery policy. 

Until recently, when the colored race in the 
United States was spoken of in connection with 
the subject of its release from oppression, it was 
subjected to the same arguments that kept the 
white men in slavery in olden times. The argu- 
ments of slaveholders were never truthful, and 
only convenient for themselves. They damaged 
the slave ; they damaged every collateral inter- 
est ; they damaged the strength of nationality ; 



and more than all, they damaged every humane 
principle of civilization. The whole reasoning 
in favor of slaveholding has been a vicious fal- 
lacy ; and perhaps the time has come, attended 
by sufficient calamity, to set the American pop- 
ulation to thinking and acting in the right 
direction. 

The colored people South are better fitted for 
freedom than is commonly imagined. They 
are quite well skilled in practical industry, 
more especially in agricultural pursuits. There 
are many of them qualified in skilled labor in 
the coarser mechanic arts. The whole of this 
population has been trained to diligent labor, 
under habits of continuous toil, It has acquired 
patience in performing labor, by the discipline 
which unremitting labor gives. The colored 
man South has not been brought up in idle- 
ness, or with habits calculated to make him a 
renegade. Were he permitted to enjoy the 
fruits of his industry, there can be no doubt of 
his disposition and patience to toil on. In case 
his rebel master would not hire him for wages, 
there would be enough amongst the non-slave- 
holding population who woidd. Production in 
the South, under emancipation of the slaves of 
rebel masters, would not materially fall off. 
Give to colored men the fruits of their industry, 
and many of them would soon set up for them- 
selves. Perhaps in connection with the soil of 
the South, that yields most abundantly in an- 
nual value of product, the rest of the colored 
population would soon get to emulate the free 
colored people of Charleston. The law of sub- 
sistence would as much compel the South to go 
on without compulsory labor as it does the 
North, and there are just as many reasons for it 
in one section as in the other ; that is, just 
none at all. Under emancipation, there is little 
doubt that actual production could and would 
soon be put on the increase, with better distri- 
bution of wealth, more widely diffused comforts, 
and a broader and better public policy. The 
only things that would be curtailed of their pro- 
portions would be slave-breeding, rebel-breed- 
ing, and ruffian cultivation. 

It may, perhaps, continue to be easier for a 
time to strike the colored man than to strike 
off his shackles. There is a mean and low side 
of humanity, a sort of defiled infirmity, that 
runs into a disposition to strike the helpless. 
This is the bravery of ruffianism. There is apt 
to be a shrinking away from duty, when the con- 
test involves a conflict with arrogant power. 
This is the cowardice of pusillanimity. The 
American citizen has been noted for his supe- 
rior bravery. He has certainly shown himself 
brave in the battle-field, and more brave and 
determined than any other nation in the vindi- 
cation and maintenance of the natural rights of 
the white man ; but he is not done with the 
business of disenthralment. His language is 
the language of liberty. It must not, it will 
not long continue to be spoken by slaves . This 
was the meaning of Jefferson, when he penned 
the text-words of disenthralment : ' All men are 
created equal, endowed by their Creator with 
certain inalienable rights, among which are 
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' 
Where is to be found the evidence that these 



AGAINST DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES. 



13 



rights have been forfeited ? Who dare deny the 
right of the colored man morally, religiously, 
or politically, to assert them ? It is true, we 
have hitherto acted in defiance of these ac- 
knowledged rights. "We have outraged them. 
We have waged a shameful and shameless war- 
fare against them. The sequences of that war- 
fare are now upon us. The sin is now being 
atoned for in blood. It has not yet been or- 
dained that the principles of injustice should 
have permanent duration. If not restrained by 
humane rationality, they will culminate in con- 
vulsion. The light is now breaking upon the 
heretofore obscured vision of the American 
people. We can now begin to see with clear- 
ness that the colored man's disenthralment is 
to become the white man's future security, 
This would almost seem to be the harmony of 
divine justice in the affairs of men. 

No substantial amelioration in the depressed 
condition of race or class has yet been brought 
about in disconnection with the powerful 
agency of such race or class. Human nature 
forbids it. The selfish tenacity of advantage, 
resting on what is misnamed ' vested rights, ' 
but having its foundation in vested wrongs, 
yields only on compulsion. It is only when 
the depressed race or class, acting in somewhat 
intelligent concert, exhibits the disposition to 
aid in the purposes of protection, that the 
mercenary power succumbs to necessity. His- 
tory furnishes no example to the contrary. It 
may not be impossible that our own times 
may make history to corroborate the truth of 
these premises. 

When it is asserted that the colored man is 
wanting in bravery, and is not endowed with 



the natural courage to assert and maintain his 
his rights, we are apt to forget that physical 
bravery is a thing of cultivation. There is not 
the least evidence that, with military discipline 
and something to fight for, the colored popula- 
tion of the United States would not prove as 
brave as the black regiment of the Revolution. 
With such bravery as that regiment exhibited, 
the four millions and their prospective increase 
would require a gigantic force to make profit- 
able slaves of them. Again, there is something 
beyond the protection from domestic violence 
that demands consideration, in connection with 
the military discipline of the colored man. We 
may reasonably expect that a large colonization 
in some quarter will soon take place, and be 
carried forward. Education and military dis- 
cipline, in addition to knowledge in practical 
industry, are necessary concomitants to suc- 
cessful colonization. With these qualities, the 
colored man will cease to feel helpless, and be 
fitted for enterprise. He will have the confi- 
dence to go forward, and the aspirations to im- 
pel him. It may be the lot of the colored man 
to encounter in some foreign land, powers and 
influences quite as barbarous as those he has 
hitherto encountered in the white man's pre- 
judices. If he is armed for the encounter, he 
will have little inclination to shrink from it. 
Every humane consideration clusters to the 
policy of disenthralling the colored man, and 
making him a being of power. Nothing can 
oppose it but the pro-slavery spirit that seeks 
to enslave the American mind to barbarism and 
the colored millions and their increase to per- 
petual bondage. 



GENERALS GRANT, ROSECRANS, AND " FIGHTING JOE HOOKER," 

DEMOCRATS OF THE JACKSONIAN CHARACTER, AND NOT OF THE 
CHICAGO COPPERHEAD COMPLEXION. 



GRANT UPON REBELS AND COPPERHEADS. 

" All we want now to insure an early restoration of the UNION is a determined UNITY 
OF SENTIMENT at the NORTH," says General Grant, in his late Washburn letter. 

" The only hope of the Rebels," he adds, " is in a DIVIDED NORTH. They are exceed- 
ingly anxious to hold out until after the Presidential Election, for," he continues, " they 
have many hopes from its effects— they hope the election of a Peace Candidate— in fact, like 
Micawber, they hope for something to turn up." 

And, if loyal men successfully resist these schemes, and vote down the Copperhead treason 
of the Chicago Convention, the Rebel leaders (the main-spring of the infernal treason) will, 
after the re-election of a loyal President, soon be skedaddling, Micawber-like, to foreign 
lands— leaving behind them not only a UNITED NORTH, but an UNDIVIDED UNION. 



GRANT UPON "PEACE." 

" Our peace friends, if they expect peace from separation " of the Union, " are much mis- 
taken ;" for the General rightly says, " it would be but the beginning of war, with thousands 
of Northern men joining the South because of our disgrace in allowing separation. ' To 



14: THE SLAVEHOLDERS' CONSPIRACY 

have peace on any terms,' the South would demand the restoration of their slaves already- 
freed — .they would demand indemnity for losses sustained — and they would demand a 
peace which would make the North slave-hunters for the South." Aye, and " they would 
demand pay or restoration of every slave escaping to the North." 

Such are the opinions of General Grant-^a man whom even the Copperheads will not 
charge with " fanaticism," inasmuch as he, like Holt, Hamilton, Dix, Butler, and others of 
the most prominent loyalists, was a Democrat of the straitest sort till this Rebellion (at 
least temporarily) erased all other distinctions except friends and enemies of our National 
Unity. 



GENERAL HOOKER ON COPPERHEADS. 

At the overwhelming meeting for the reception of " Fighting Joe Hooker," at the Brook- 
lyn Academy of Music, after hearing of Sheridan's great victory over Early's rebel army, 
Genera] Hooker said : 

" We have not even yet put forward all our energies and resources, although we have 
shown, and we have employed, resources which have amazed the world. But in the North, 
the North has not yet made that one great effort to crush this revolt by a blow ; it could 
do it, and can do it, any day when it moves for that purpose. (Cheers.) The people in 
these loyal States — and I am proud to say it — the people have been in advance of the 
authorities in all of this rebellion (cheers), and they will be until they reach the end, and the 
end is not remote. (Cheers.) I am rejoiced to meet you, and to meet you under such auspices 
as I do to-night. Tidings — glorious tidings — reach us from all of the armies ; the work 
goes bravely on. There are NO COPPERHEADS— (great cheers)— there are NO COP- 
PERHEADS IN THE ARMY. (Cheers.) They will fight well, and they will vote well. 
(Cheers.) More devotion, more loyalty, never, never animated the hearts and the hands 
of men more brave." 



GENERAL ROSECRANS UPON THE ATROCITIES OF THE 
REBELLION. 

In his reply to the complimentary resolutions of the Ohio Legislature toward General 
Rosecrans and his troops, that gallant officer spoke of the rebels much as he handled them 
in his campaigns — without mittens. He said — and his words should be remembered 
throughout the land : — 

" This is, indeed, a war for the maintenance of the constitution and the laws — nay, for 
national existence — against those who have despised our honest friendship, deceived our just 
hopes, and driven us to defend our country and our homes. By foul and wilful slanders on our 
motives and intentions, persistently repeated, they have arrayed against us our fellow- 
citizens, bound to us by the triple ties of consanguinity, geographical position, and com- 
mercial interest. 

" Let no man among us be base enough to forget this, or fool enough to trust an oligarchy 
of traitors to their friends, to civil liberty, and human freedom. Voluntary exiles from 
home and friends, for the defence and safety of all, we long for the time when gentle peace 
shall again spread her wings over our land ; but we know no such blessing is possible while 
the unjust and arbitrary power of rebel leaders confronts and threatens us. Crafty as the 
fox, cruel as the tiger, they cried ' no coercion,' while preparing to strike us. Bully-like, 
they proposed to fight us, because they said they could whip us five to one ; and now, when 
driven back, they whine out 'no invasion,' and promise us of the West permission to navi- 
gate the Mississippi, if we will be ' good boys,' and do as they bid us. 

" Whenever they have the power, they drive before them into their ranks the Southern 
people, and they would drive us. Trust them not. Were they able, they would invade 
and destroy us without mercy. Absolutely assured of these things, I am amazed that any 
one could think of ' peace on any terms.' He who entertains the sentiment is only fit to 
be a slave ; he who writes it at this time is, moreover, a traitor to his country, who deserves 
the scorn and contempt of all honorable men. When the power of the unscrupulous rebel 
leaders is removed, and the people are free to consider and act for their own interests, 
which are common with ours, under this government, there will be no great difficulty in 
fraternization. Between our tastes and social life there are fewer differences than between 
those of the northern and southern provinces of England or Ireland. 

"W. S. Rosecrans, Major-General." 



AGAINST DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES. 15 



THE IRISH IN THE NORTH. 



The extracts from the Rebel Journals, show the most extraordinary abuse of the Irish, 
connected at the same time with the liveliest hope that their former devotion to the Demo- 
cratic Party will induce them now to vote the Copperhead Chicago ticket, which promises 
" amnesty and peace " to the Rebels and traitors who thus infamously abuse them. 

Generals Meagher, Shields, Corcoran, Mulligan, and other heroic Irishmen, among the 
thousands of that class who risked death, and captivity worse than death, in defence oi 
their adopted country, have shown examples which should not be lost upon their well 
meaning countrymen who are enjoying the rights and privileges for which those gallant 
soldiers fearlessly breasted the horrors of this Slaveholders' Rebellion. , 



ON THE CHICAGO SURRENDER. 

What ! hoist the white flag when our triumph is nigh ? 
What! crouch before Treason? make Freedom a lie? 
What ! spike all our guns when the foe is at bay, 
And the rags of his black banner dropping away ? 
Tear down the strong name that our nation has won, 
And strike her brave bird from his home in the sun ? 

He's a coward who shrinks from the lift of the sword ; 
He's a traitor who mocks at the sacrifice poured ; 
Nameless and homeless the doom that should blast 
The knave who stands idly till peril is past ; 
But he who submits when the thunders have burst 
And victory dawns, is of cowards the worst ! 

Is the old spirit dead ? Are we broken and weak, 
That cravens so shamelessly lift the white cheek 
To court the swift insult, nor blush at the blow — 
The tools of the Treason and friends of the foe? 
See! Anarchy smiles at the peace which they ask, 
Ami the eyes of Disunion flash out through the mask ! 

Give thanks, ye brave boys ! who by vale and by crag 
Bear onward, unfaltering, our noble old Hag ! 
Strong arms of the Union, heroes living and dead, 
For the blood of your valor is uselessly shed ! 
No soldier's green laurel is promised you here, 
But the white rag of " sympathy" softly shall cheer ! 

And you, ye war martyrs ! who preach from your graves 

How captives are nursed by the masters of slaves, 

Or, living, still linger in shadows of Death, — 

PulF out the starved muscle, recall the faint breath, 

And shout, till those cowards rejoice at the cry : 

" By the hands of the Union we fought for, we die !" 

By the God of our Fathers ! this shame we must share, 
But it grows too debasing for freemen to bear, 
And Washington, Jackson, will turn in their graves 
When the Union shall rest on two races of slaves, 
Or, spurning the spirit which bound it of yore, 
And sundered, exist as a nation no more! 

Bayard Taylor. 



16 THE SLAVEHOLDERS' CONSPIRACY. 

DOUGLAS AND DICKINSON, 

DEMOCRATS OF JACKSONIAN TIMES— BELIEVING IN THE DOC- 
TRINE OF OLD HICKORY, "THAT THE UNION MUST 
AND SHALL BE PRESERVED." 



DOUGLAS AND HIS DEMOCRATIC FRIENDS. 

Nothing in the political history of the times was more cheering to all loyal men than the 
frankness and promptness with which Senator Douglas broke through all partisan distinc- 
tions in proffering a hearty support to his successful competitor Lincoln, when the Rebellion 
first raised its assassin-like arm against the National Government. This practical example is 
worth a volume of comments on the patriotism of Douglas and his confidence in the in- 
tegrity of President Lincoln ; and it is creditable alike to themselves and to their country 
that so many of the Democratic friends of Douglas, like Grant. Dix, Dickinson, and others, 
have so cordially united with former opponents in giving " a long pull, a strong pull, and a 
pull all together," in defence of the National Union. 



DICKINSON UPON REBELLION-" AM I FOR PEACE ?"-YES ! 

The reply of Daniel S. Dickinson to a person who wrote inquiring " if he was for 
peace," is just what might be expected from that thorough-going Democrat, and is worthy 
of repetition everywhere through the land, as a general answer to the Copperhead slang- 
whanging about " armistices," and " peace-upon-any-terms" with the Slaveholding Traitors. 

" AM I FOR PEACE ?"— YES !— 

For the peace which rings out from the cannon's throat, 

And the suasion of shot and shell, 
Till Rebellion's spirit is trampled down 

To the depths of its kindred hell — 

For the peace which shall follow the squadron's tramp, 

Where the brazen trumpets bray, 
And, drunk with the fury of storm and strife, 

The blood-red chargers neigh — 

For the peace that shall wash out the leprous stain 

Of our slavery — foul and grim — 
And shall sunder the fetters which creak and clank 

On the dowi>tr,pjlden black man's limb. 

I will curse him as traitor, and false of heart, 

Who would shrink from the conflict now, 
And will stamp it with blistering, burning brand, 

On his hideous Cain-like brow. 

Out ! out of the way ! with your spurious " peace ;" 

Which would make us Rebellion's slaves ; 
We will rescue our land from the traitor's grasp, 

Or cover it over with graves. 

Out ! out of the way ! with your knavish schemes. 

You trembling and trading pack ! — 
Crouch away in the dark, like a sneaking hound, 

That its master had beaten back. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

You would barter the fruit of our fathers' blood, j 

And sell out the Stripes and Stars, '| jjj \ 

To purchase a place with Rebellion's votes, j jj l] j 

Or escape from Rebellion's scars. || ]\ jl J | 

By the widow's wail, by the mother's tears, 012 027 629 3 # 

By the orphans who cry for bread, 
By our sons who fell, WE WILL NEVER YIELD , 

TILL REBELLION'S SOUL IS DEAD ! 




012 027 629 3 # 



Hollinger 

pH8.5 

Mill Run F3-1719 



